An alumna of Clarion West Writer’s Workshop for science fiction and fantasy, I’ve written for markets like The New York Times and Time Out New York. Currently, I write about sci-fi for Blastr. I also edit the humor competition for The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. You can follow me on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and here at Forbes.

The Naked Truth About Halo 4

As Frank O’Connor, the franchise development director of Halo 4, explained to me the importance of strategy in the long-awaited addition in the Halo series, all I could think was, “Naked naked naked.” That’s because I had just met the 2012 version of Cortana, the Master Chief’s AI companion, a character who is brilliant, capable, loyal and happened to be completely sans garments. Because of Halo 4’s excellent graphics, her body, rather than her personality, is in the forefront. Naked naked naked.

The Master Chief is back, and Cortana is with him every step of the way to keep him abreast of the situation. There’s some extremely exciting action here, butt the game also explores Cortana’s over-extended lifespan, which results in an AI insanity, rampancy. Action and emotion: It’s the breast of both worlds.

And if I’m milking this imagery too much (<–see what I did there), perhaps it’s because I didn’t expect everything to look as crisp and real as it did (especially so soon after I had written two articles about sexism and gaming, here and here.) Halo 4 is shaping up to be an adrenaline-producing game that happens to be extremely, um, eye-catching.

Unsurprisingly to Halo fans, the action is absolutely astonishing. The intensity, the flow, the precision at which the enemies struck—none of it compared to the moment when O’Connor, at the controls, tossed a grenade at an enemy, only to see our opponent pick the grenade up and fling it right back at us.

Let me repeat that: An enemy flung our own %^*@! grenade right back in our faces.

That (and the naked naked naked) was the stand-out moment in a demo that was full of gorgeous gunplay, brightening Halo 4’s multiple shades of black with muzzle flashes.

The enemies we were facing at that moment, according to O’Connor, are called Crawlers, AIs devised by the Forerunners. “They’re pretty easy to deal with, but their pack behavior make them challenging some times. The fact that they can crawl on any surface means they can flank you.”

Flank they did. The Master Chief had a helluva time trying to shut down a communication’s relay, but thanks to some advanced weaponry, he managed it. It turns out that killing Crawlers doesn’t just lead to personal satisfaction at keeping the galaxy safe from infestation: Crawler-killing can lead to some very cool loot, something the Master Chief will obviously need in his fight on Requiem, a Forerunner planet, against the Prometheans, the enemies of the new “Reclaimer” Trilogy.

“They obviously come with their own technology.” O’Connor pointed out a pistol and a rifle of the Forerunners, something you can loot from an enemy corpse.“Halo fans like getting new equipment to play with.”

These nice new additions to your arsenal may also include a “hardlight shield.” “A lot of alien technology is based on the fact that light has mass, like a physical object. That will become part of the story.” (As we know, regular light, as in photons, has no mass. But alien tech is allowed to Higgs it up.)

But Halo 4 isn’t just about guns and shields. The story also involves Cortana, and the relationship between the AI and the mostly silent Master Chief has given the series a depth that has engaged the players on an emotional level. O’Connor said, “AIs have a life span of seven years, and she’s almost eight, the time when an AI starts to decay and overwrite itself. [Halo 4 is] about her degenerating condition and its effect on her relationship with the Master Chief and on the game itself.

“The Master Chief is a little stiff and robotic and she’s the more human of the two. Cortana is an unusual AI because she was cloned from the brain pattern of her creator, a scientist named Catherine Halsey, and she’s the only AI based on a human brain pattern, which has its advantages and disadvantages.” What kind of disadvantages? “You’ll find out.”

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It appears to me that Cortana’s model has simply increased in graphical quality, making her progressively more realistic. She does not look significantly different to me from past titles. I can guess that the goal of her artists were to make attractive looking, but I do not think she is overly suggestive. Honestly, I think you are tuning the art of a videogame into something much more than it is.

“Looking at the evolution of Cortana through the different games, she has clearly been made more visually sexual in each incarnation.” -matthew

besides that they shortened her hair, whats different? Do you honestly expect them to stick with the original HALO CE graphics? I mean really? She’s looking more sexual because better graphics are making her look more human. She had boobs, feminine voice, and was just as naked in the first game as she is in this game. If you don’t like what they are doing, then why bother read an article on it. Was it not clear that this article was going to be on her?

Cortana isn’t the only AI to be made from a human brain, they ALL are. They’re suppose to scan dead people to make the AI’s. Dr Halsey cloned herself & used her clones brain to make Cortana so she would be the smartest AI.

I am not sur if you are upset about cortana appearance or not but i must defend my favorite game series of all time. I do understand that their is a big problem with sexism in the gaming community, but i think cortanna is the least of your problems. Cortanna may be a naked form, but i dont believe that a naked body has to be intended as a sexual picture. ( also take note that while ” naked ” she does not have nipples or other graphical sexual images on her holograph.) Also when looking at bungie ( the company that crated halo) you should take a look at their library of female characters. 1.- Oni – I really dont think that she looks unrealistic in any way and is not treated badly for being a woman. 2. Cortanna- Cortanna is a main character in the series and has no sexual moments and is treated with the same respect as the male characters of the game. 3. Miranda Keyes- Again not unrealisticly proportioned and also a main badass in the halo games on several occasions 4- Dr. Catherine Halsey- A brilliant dr who is “ parent” to cortanna and the spartan program- again a girl and arguably the most intelligent character in the entire series 5- Kat- member of noble team- never and shots of breast or other sexual organs never sexualized in any way.

Im sorry but i just do not see cortanna as an isuue and to be quite honest i believe that for the most part game companies should be able to put what they want in their games. The biggest problem for sexism in the games community comes from the gamers themselves not the companies.

“Cortana is an unusual AI because she was cloned from the brain pattern of her creator, a scientist named Catherine Halsey, and she’s the only AI based on a human brain pattern, which has its advantages and disadvantages.”

This is wrong. It’s well established that all ‘smart’ AI’s like Cortana are created from the brain patterns of people, Cortana is only different in that the brain pattern she was created from came from a living person, all the others came from deceased people

Actually I think he was referring to the fact that she is the only “smart” AI that was created from a brain pattern from a still living subject. As mentioned all Smart AI where created using the brain patterns from dead people. Halsey breaking the law Flash Cloned herself, and used this sickly clone and took her brain patterns to created Cortana. So she was created from a still living, but yet dead person.